Читать книгу Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815. A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings онлайн
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In a note he gives the instance of the reply of Commander Mansell, who commanded the prison-ship police at Chatham in 1813, when the fact that not one quarter of the clothing due to the prisoners had been delivered to them, was proved clearly: ‘I am afraid it is too true, but I have nothing to do with it. I cannot help it.’
From the Carnet d’Étapes du Sergt.-Maj. Beaudouin, 31e demi-brigade de ligne, I take the following account of life on the hulks.
‘On October 31st, 1809, Beaudouin left Valleyfield where he had been confined since June 10th, 1804, and came on board the Bristol hulk at Chatham. At this time the hulks were the Glory, three decker, Bristol, Crown Prince, Buckingham, Sampson (mauvais sujets), Rochester, Southwick, Irresistible, Bahama (Danes), and Trusty, hospital ship, holding in all 6,550 prisoners.’
Beaudouin says:
‘The difference between the land prisons and the hulks is very marked. There is no space for exercise, prisoners are crowded together, no visitors come to see them, and we are like forsaken people. There is no work but the corvées to get our water, and to scrape in winter and wash in summer our sleeping place. In a word, only to see them is to be horrified. The anchorage at Chatham is bounded by low and ill-cultured shores; the town is two miles away—a royal dockyard where there is much ship-building. At the side of it is a fine, new, well-armed fort, and adjoining it a little town named Rochester, where there are two windmills, and two more in Chatham. By the London road, three miles off, there are four windmills. The people of this country are not so pleasant and kind as in Scotland, in fact I believe “the sex” is not so beautiful.’